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2012-12-09 - Testing 1 2 3
Kara Zor-El comes up in the elevator of the Baxter Building to the top floor after having been invited here by Dr. Reed Richards. She had actually contacted him to ask him about his research into shrinking technology - something she's been asking all sorts of experts in the fields of miniaturization ever since she first found out from Kal about the bottled city of Kandor. Though so far, none of the scientists she's talked to have figured a way to undo the Brainiac method of miniaturization, which also involves a stasis field which is advanced even by Kryptonian standards. Of course, the fact of who she was came up as well, and that piqued Mr. Fantastic's curiosity as well - considering Kryptonians are an alien race which Reed has NOT learned about before. Not to mention the plethora of powers they seem to have, some of which defy conventional laws of physics. Considering she'd already met with Hank McCoy for an exchange of information about mutants and Kryptonian biology, she figured it would be a good idea to do the same with someone who everyone on BOTH earths have been calling the smartest man on the planet. When she comes out of the elevator, she sees Ben Grimm, aka The Thing, who she had seen once before in New York, albeit that particular meeting was uneventful. She waves a little. "Hi? Um.... is Dr. Richards here? I'm Kara Zor-El?" She's dressed in civilian clothes though she's not wearing her glasses or hair up. Not even a wig. Mainly because she's not trying to hide who she is. For the moment, Roberta, the secretary, nods over at Kara, "Of course. I'll let Doctor Richards know that you're here." She's a highly advanced and interactive android (the receptionist), and she pushes a few buttons then over as she sends a radio communication. "He'll see you now." One of the elevator doors slides open now for Kara to go over into, and on the top floor, when she arrived, she would see Ben arguing, "... Dammit Matchstick, you do that one more time.." The duo are playing Mario Kart over on one of the large televisions, and Torch is racing through one of the side tracks, off the course. Kara Zor-El makes a little wave again. "Er... hello?" She walks into the room a bit and clears her throat. "ahem... hello?" she asks tentatively as the two superheroes are arguing with each other over the video game with the stereotyped italian plumber who's a doctor, a race car driver, a rescuer, made of paper... in fact he does everything except plumbing, based on those games. Ben Grimm grumbles, "Hey, Reed'll be with ya in a moment." In fact, there comes Doctor Richards. OR rather, his head. Stretching out several hundred meters through the hallways, twisting and turning, followed a moment later by his hand, which gives a wave, "Thank you for coming here, Kara. Please follow me." Kara Zor-El blinks. Seriously she never will be used to the stretchy people. Probably because the only one she's really met more than once has been Plastic Man, who's notorious for weirding people out. She's never even met Elongated Man. She nods to Reed, "Oh... okay." She waves back, not really sure what to say, so she follows, looking back at Ben and Johnny briefly as Johnny gives Ben a hotfoot in order to get an advantage on the game. She follows Reed's head to where his lab is located. "Are... they always like that?" Reed nods distractedly, "A plurality of the times I've observed them." He goes to several large looking arrays of equipment, "Whenever you're ready, we can get started. I've read the notes provided by the Justice League to the Avengers on Kryptonians, but they focused more on a summation of your abilities rather than a cultural history of your species." Kara Zor-El looks around at the equipment curiously before looking back at Richards. "Oh... cultural history? Okay um... like I said on the phone, I'm fine with any tests or questions you have." She then asks, "What sort of summation by the way?" Reed takes his hand over to put a pair of glasses on, "Krypton, by what little data I've been given, was an old culture of high technology, but unaware, to an extent, of the abilities you have here." He gestures at Kara floating above the ground, "So I thought I would begin with some queries of your species to understand how a culture as technologically advanced as they were was unaware of such potential." Kara Zor-El pauses. "Actually.... we were aware of our potential." She pauses to explain, since it's something Jor-El didnt really talk about in his crystals to Kal, but she learned about Kryptonian history in school, even the stuff the House of El tended to ignore. "Krypton used to be sort of an empire of a hundred or so planets under the Military Guild. When the Science Guild was elected to power, they ended that sort of thing and recalled all Kryptonian soldiers and governors back to Krypton, except a couple of planets in the Rao system." She thinks about other stuff she remembers from her classes. "They even dismantled the Kryptonian Armada of ships, and disabled a lot of the experimentation on how we process higher sunlight radiation levels. It's why Kal's... er... Superman's father and my parents knew that on Earth, we'd have powers that we did not have on Krypton." Reed ndos, "Fascinating." Brushing his glasses up, "The way your abilities work is primarily telepathic in nature, correct? You create a psychic field about yourself that is the source of most your abilities to a degree, that is fueled by solar radiation?" Reed goes to take out some instruments and starts scanning. "Did Krypton have a history of high powered telepaths that you are aware of?" Kara Zor-El explains a little more. "The Science Guild didn't believe in the rapid expansionism that the Military Guild believed. Krypton went into a period of isolationism instead. Maybe if they hadn't, there would have been Kryptonians on other planets outside of the Rao system." Kara shrugs a little at the next question. "I'm not really sure how they work - I think they're biological in nature but I wouldnt really know that - they stopped doing research on this sort of thing centuries before I was born." She thinks a bit. "I mean I think there were probably some who had telepathic abilities maybe in the Religious Guild but that guild and the Guild of Kryptonian Magic were really secretive. My mother said that we had some sort of biomatrix field though... but there might be some psionics involved too. Sorry I'm not more helpful on that particular area." Reed nods, "Again, interesting. So, the different guilds on Krypton were responsible for different facets of maintaining your civilization then?" Reed takes out some more scanners, and then takes out two long metal nobs, to pass them along to Kara, "Please hold these, and put you thumb on the tips." He continues to take scans. "I'm trying to measure your internal capacity for storing solar radiation." Kara Zor-El nods a little. "Yeah, I was actually pre-Guild, you don't choose a Guild until you turn 17, but most people figured I was probably going to be Science Guild like my mother. Well my art teacher thought I should consider the Artist's Guild but ... yknow" She shrugs, then takes thet metal knobs curiously, looking at them with microscopic vision briefly (just curious how they work) then putting her thumbs on the tips of the knobs. "You know... I don't think STAR Labs ever did something like that, and they did all sorts of tests." Reed nods up at Kara distractedly, "Of course." The small knobs are simply highly precise solar energy collectors - they'll take a small amount of energy from you, and then use that to try and quantify how much there is in you in total to gague a baseline for your current state. "Your powers are fueled by radiation, so it makes sense physiologically for you to be a highly efficient organic battery, both to absorb and store energy." Kara Zor-El nods a little as she listens curiously. Meanwhile, the solar energy collectors trying to gauge the young teen's capacity for solar radiation storage keeps rising and rising. It goes past the core of a a yellow sun's rads, then past white dwarf's level apparently. At least in potential. "I guess that does make sense, it's something Uncle Jor-El used to say about different wavelengths of solar radiation. Like that under yellow, blue and white stars our powers would increase a lot, while under orange stars, they'd be moderately lower, and red would be sort of baseline with a human. I really never tried to find out what sort of limits I-" She's interrupted as the capacitors fizzle. There's a sigh from Reed as the chargers fizzle, "Temperamental equipment. Please excuse me. I've at least taken a few baseline readings, so I'll base my estimates off those." He goes to put them back over in a wall. "Everything has a limit of storage, but oftentimes the limit is not the practical measure. But rather the output. You can, for example, expend greater amounts of stores of energy in times of emergency? Or proportionally expend more when your reserves are greater, correct?" Kara Zor-El nods a little. "I guess so. But I don't really think I've ever done anything where I've 'expended' energy like it's some stored quantifiable amount. It's more like... you know how you use food to fuel your muscles? It's like that, but with solar radiation." Reed nods, "Exactly. And at times of high adrenaline your body will burn more calories to fuel itself. Or Adjust for environmental factors, such as if you're caught in freezing temperatures your body will gradually lower it's body temperature to burn fewer calories." Kara Zor-El thinks. "Oh well yeah, then yes. When the adrenaline's pumping, we can probably go above our normal limits, whatever they happen to be, I suppose? I mean... Flash once said if we get our adrenaline really pumping I can go faster than I think I can. He was trying to show me how to vibrate fast enough to go through solid matter. I tried but it just destroyed the wall but he seemed pretty confident that I'd be able to from what he said he's seen with me." Reed Richards nods, "I'd love to see him demonstrate that sometime." He goes on, "You said you haven't found the upper limits of your abilities yet, correct? Either for how much energy you can store or what your maximum power output is." Kara Zor-El shakes her head no. "No doctor, I haven't." She pauses then adds, "Just curious what sort of power output do you mean?" Doctor Richards elaborates, "Your body is a continuous solar circuit, constantly taking in ambient energy from around you. You have a normal baseline strength, and you can boost it by boosting the amount of solar radiation in the short term, correct?" He means sun dipping. Kara Zor-El nods. "Um.. yeah I did that once but Kal's done it a few times. He calls it 'sun dipping.'" She pauses. "It also helps with healing if we do get hurt, from what I've been told." She looks around at a lot of the other equipment. A lot of it is waaaay beyond what most humans are even remotely capable of creating, including the scientists at STAR Labs. There's a mixture of human tech, alien tech, tech from other times, and technology from other dimensions. And human tech made to replicate them. Doctor Richards goes on, "Exactly. Given you cannot establish an upper limit for your ability to store energy, and your strength increases exponentially the more you have in your system, that makes you not only one of the most powerful, if not the most, powerful individuals on our new merged planet, but that the Fantastic Four have encountered in the cosmos as well." It sounds similar to the type of stuff Darkseid would say, except in a much more comforting way since Reed isnt trying to brainwash her to be his slave to use to conquer Earth and other planets. She smiles a little. "If you say so." She considers mentioning that there have been more powerful beings who have almost killed Kryptonians, like Doomsday. Though that's probably not a fair comparison since, technically, Doomsday is himself 'kryptonian' technically. "Thanks?" That's what you say to something like that, right? You thank them? "So um.... what's next on the agenda?" Doctor Richards continues on, not quite brusquely but in an 'isn't that interesting' voice, "On the other topic you wished to speak of.. One of the remaining outposts of your people that I believe you said was shrunk and present in a stasis field?" Doctor Richards goes on, "That's the specialty of another acquaintance of mine, Doctor Pym. He is one of the leading experts in miniaturization and expansion." Kara Zor-El nods. "Kandor. It has maybe thousands of Kryptonians - if it was able to be enlarged maybe me and Kal wouldn't be the last ones left. It was miniaturized and put into some sort of stasis field by ... " she tries to think of how to describe Brainiac. "Sort of a Kryptonian remnant of Artificial Intelligence called Brainiac. Sort of a living computer that the Science Guild built." She adds, "I think." Reed nods, considering, "An artificial intelligence, but of a near planetary scale?" He says that like it might be another problem to dissect and analyse. But there's nothing particularly creepy about it. "Regardless, I'll give as much help as I'm able, and recommend anyone that I might think could help you." Doctor Richards takes a breath, "And I'm sorry that I can't express anything beyond my sympathies for the loss of your homeworld and culture, and that I hope you continue to find Earth a welcoming place." Kara Zor-El smiles. "Thanks. If you don't mind my asking.... you and um... Ben and the pyromaniac guy are all humans. Are you mutants?" She adds, "I mean... your DNA doesn't look like the same DNA as a mutant." Yeah, because she's able to -see- DNA. "But there's something weird about it like it's been altered. Different than that spider-man person's DNA has been altered too. It's in flux or something. I've never seen something like it before." There's a nod from Doctor Richards, "Mutants are born the way they are, but in many cases the genetic structure is latent until it's triggered, often by stress or emotional durress." He elaborates, "Myself and the Fantastic Four are altered humans, if you would classify that as a specific grouping. OUr genetic structure was altered by inadverdant bombardment by cosmic rays and altered." Kara Zor-El pats her lap, interested. "What type of cosmic rays? Where did they come from?" She fidgets a bit. "Do you know anything about the composition? Were they galactic cosmic rays? Do you think that would change other humans also if they hit other human beings? What sort of composition of nuclei were they? Alpha particles?" She starts chattering on about cosmic rays and how Kryptonian astrophysicists used to theorize that they were accelerated from the blast waves of supernovas. But thte idea of cosmic rays giving people powers? It must have been a very unusual supernova to have that sort of effect on human tissue! "Do you maybe there was some sort of mixture of gamma ray bursts, or maybe superstring-influenced nuclei. Oooh, or strongly interacting neutrinos or some sort of exotic dark matter that could have caused it?" Reed nods, going back and forth wtih Kara, "Unofrtunately, we don't have an exact idea of the actual makeup of the rays. What we were faced with was a far more intense bombardment than our ship's radiation shields had been designed to take, combined with them refracting the rays and magnifying them. The resulting overload also completely destroyed our ship's electronics and sensors, and it was unfortunately several days later before we had access to equipment again, by which point the alterations to our genetics structure had stabilized and much of the remaining energy had dissipated or altered to the point it was of no use for analysis." HE sighs, "If I had access to a more intact sample it would immeasurably aid not only in understanding the changes, but in perhaps reversing them in the sake of Ben." Kara Zor-El nods. "He doesn't seem unhappy to me. I mean... he's a little grumpy but I think that's because of the fire guy." Who's name she still hasn't learned. She pauses and adds, "You said Fantastic Four... who's the fourth member?" Reed ahems, "That would be Johnny's sister, Susan Storm. She handles much of our public relations." Reed's an introverted scientist, Johnny is a teenaged brat, and Ben is far too sullen. That leaves her! Kara Zor-El looks through the walls at where Ben and Johnny are arguing and nearly going to come to blows over Mario Kart. "It's just so odd that four people would be affected by the same cosmic rays but have such wildly different effects. Probably the reason I see quantum instability influences on your DNA." She winces at something she's looking at through the walls. Reed smiles, "But that is, perhaps, what is so grand. Four people in close proximity to another, all of the same species, all receiving the same exposure. Yet all of us came out so differently. Science is finding out just why that is." The accompanying 'THUMP' sound echos far, and probably what was indicative of Kara's wince. Kara Zor-El nods a bit. "Definitely a mystery." She winces again and mouths, 'ow' to herself, sympathetically. Then shakes her head a bit and looks back over at Reed. "Have you met a lot of aliens?" In fairness, Johnny probably deserved it. If not, he'll get back with Ben later. IF he did deserve it, he'll still get back. Reed nods, "Yes, we have met many. IT's always interesting to meet a new species and a new culture, and also to remember that to them we are the same thing as humans." Kara Zor-El smiles. "Tell that to my cousin. He was raised on Earth. I think he doesn't always take that into account that I wasn't." She looks around, feeling a lot more comfortable with the advanced technology in this lab. "And what makes it worse if I've been told not to explain a lot of the technology I grew up with. It's so frustrating." Reed nods quietly again, "I'm sorry. You have to forgive us, technology is not so universally spread or accessible on Earth yet. Nor do my permutations state it will under our normal pace of advancement for some decades. Much less the scientific knowledge required to make it accessible." Kara Zor-El shakes her head. "Oh there's nothing to forgive. I'm just not wanting to see another planet blow up if I can help it." she says nonplussed. "It's just so frustrating sometimes. Did you know I was told I can't even become an American citizen unless I do it as some secret identity because it would potentially start wars?" That gets an amused look from Reed, "Such is the state of intergalactic relations and politics. One has to think beyond the immediacy of such things and look at how others will perceive them." Kara Zor-El nods a bit. "It just seems wrong that the only way I'd be able to vote legally is to have a fake identity or never help anyone outside of this country." There's a half smile from Reed, "Unfortunately, humanity is still a very young species. We're still very much finding our way not only in the cosmos, but in our own planet. Earth does not have a united government, and we're still making our way on international cooperation beyond a rudimentary level. Forgive us for being at the cultural stage where our nations squabble much in the same way as Johnny and Ben do. We'll find our way, it will just take time." Kara Zor-El walks over to one of the machines, tapping it curiously. Then looks at Reed confused. "Honest, I wsnt saying anything to apologize for. And it's not like other planets are all peace loving or unified. Krypton only became that way because it went isolationist, and most of the land mass was one continent. It was more geographically imposed. There were still smaller continents and islands which had different governments. They got along with the main landmass but it wasnt 'unified.' I just really don't understand the rules sometimes about how my helping people in China as an American would be any different than helping someone in China as an alien. Just because of 'sovereignty.'" She looks over. "You guys save all sorts of places on the planet and you're all American, right?" Reed nods, "Yes, much of that is for whatever reason the United States has an extremely high cluster of metahumans. Particularly on the Eastern seaboard. Having not had an opportunity to view such demographic information from your world to compare, but it seems for whatever reason the ihghest clusters of such types are within the United States, rather than places like India or China, which have far higher populations and far higher population densities, which would make one assume such things." He muses, "An interesting study on it's own sake. And Earth has only truly had the ability to learn what is going on around the world on a timely basis in the last century as communication technology has improved." Kara Zor-El nods a little. "There weren't any ... um... meta-Kryptonians far as I knew. You know, as a basis of comparison." Not that she's planning on counting Doomsday. She then asks, "But my question is why is it acceptable for Avengers or you guys or even a lot of Justice League members who are from different countries to cross borders while having citizenships but with me it's not. I just don't get it." Reed holds up his shoulders in a shrug, "I can't explain that particular bit. That sounds like something you would have to discuss over with a representative of the League, or whomever it was that explained such reasoning in the first place." Kara Zor-El nods, "Yeah..." then nods again. "Yeah! I should ask that shouldnt I?" She heads over to Reed and says, "You now if you ever want to do any other tests I'm fine with it. During the first month on this planet, there were all sorts of tests being done by Batman, by STAR Labs, etc. I found it actually helped me too - Kal's had his entire life to figure out how to control his powers, I've only had the past year or so. It's easier to gauge things if I have some sort of benchmark." Reed nods distractedly, "Of course. IT could also simply be that they mis-communicated their purposes, or alternatively it was purely to cover while you were adapting to Earth and meant to help them be sure you didn't do anything dangerous to yourself or others. And I would be fascinated to look at their data." Kara Zor-El pauses. "Are... are you a vulcan?" She then shakes her head a bit. "Anyway... I probably should go, but seriously, you have my number, I'd love if I could come back and you could show me some of your inventions or something." Reed shakes his head, "Don't be silly." He goes on, "While there lies the possibility of copper based blood, Vulcans otherwise would be far different than humans as far as species aesthetics without extensive genetic engineering." He gets this question a lot. "And be well."